It's Thanksgiving week. There is lot there is to be cranky about right now and in Anna's case this has been a particularly hard few months. But she reminds us that whether it's Covid grief, or loss of Thanksgiving tradition or the death of a spouse, to be respectful of each other's pain, no matter what it looks like. In her graceful way, Anna talks about building a muscle of gratefulness to provide you with a banked counter balance for those hard times so that when we do have "those days" we can dig into those grateful banked moments.  

Jarrod discusses the notion of focusing on  the tomorrow, what you can control, reminding us that this will eventually pass (but giving some suggestion on how to maintain sanity until we do). 

Twyla is my North Dakotan friend who is now living in Minneapolis after spending some time in New York. She lives in Golden Valley, a suburb of Minneapolis, is amicably divorced with two teenagers, Tuco and Ronnie. She is an avid gardner, wine drinker, beer drinker, dinner and party host, Twyla alternately loves and hates people. She is an independent IT consultant who specializes in business analysis, team leadership, development and general fire fighting.  Twyla likes to build things and build things with people.  Three pizza ovens for example.  Bringing people together and community are a personal mission for Twyla, connecting people and expanding minds, sharing ideas and helping people inspire each other is what keeps her up at night, in a good way.

Alex was working as an Animal scientist in South Africa in the dairy and beef fields. He loved his work, travelling the country and working with farmers, relishing the chance to be part of the food supply chain. The Covid hit and challenged him to find his why, pack up his life and unpack it again but this time based on his rules and not what life had dictated.

Louise is a South African turned Kiwi and is an organizational development coordinator for Nelson’s regional district health board. That is Nelson in New Zealand, she is 17 hours ahead of me in the Midwest. Louise is married with two boys, one water snail and a guppy. Last time we spoke, 6 months ago, her boys were extremely busy building and doing various activities, her guppy was lonely, the snail was an escape artist, her 8 year old had a covid goal of learning to tie his shoe laces, and her husband was learning pilates and yoga (which Louise might have recorded)...

Joscelin is a self-employed consultant to the Hospitality industry and is based in South Africa. Last time we spoke Jos shared with us the impacts of Covid on herself, as well as her friends and colleagues in the tourism industry. When Covid hit and forced shut - downs Jos was on the front lines of being impacted. Today, 6 months later, we are reconnecting to find out what Covid looks like for her now (and her friends and colleagues) 6 months in.

Hetal, a Zimbabwean who now calls Australia home, talks to us from down under and brings us into her life talking about topics like immigration trauma, dealing with separation and the need to stay positive but more importantly lessons she has learned along the way to actually be positive.